I don’t think any response is necessary. If this person continues to send emails that you consider offensive (I assume this was a passed on email joke), they just start deleting them. If they ask about one you can again say you found it offensive and so you just deleted it. Finally, if this is your major type of communication with this person, perhaps you need to drop them as a friend, but keep praying for them!

As someone who, at least when I was younger, told to “lighten up” many times here’s my take.

The way you voice your disapproval is an opportunity to positively influence your friend. Tell them, in a gentle way, that “I’m not judging you, so don’t feel that way, I would just rather not have this kind of thing around me.”

Even if they don’t agree with you, that response is more likely to make them THINK.

When I started handling situations this way, rather than people telling me to “lighten up” they respected where I was coming from.

I had an e-mail sent to me that was offensive and when I said that I was offended, I was told to lighten up. Are there any suggestions for a response?

Well you have every right to be offended by whatever you saw. Be as offended as you want to be. Understand though, that you live in America (I assume) where we have freedom of speech. If you don’t like what you got, you can always block his domain or take other measures to stop communication with the individual. Or maybe you should just lighten up a bit.